children Article The Child Behavior Checklist as a Screening Instrument for PTSD in Refugee Children Ina Nehring 1,*, Heribert Sattel 2, Maesa Al-Hallak 1, Martin Sack 2, Peter Henningsen 2, Volker Mall 1 and Sigrid Aberl 2 1 Department of Social Pediatrics, Technische Universität München, D-81377 Munich, Germany;
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[email protected] (V.M.) 2 Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, D-81377 Munich, Germany;
[email protected] (H.S.);
[email protected] (M.S.);
[email protected] (P.H.);
[email protected] (S.A.) * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: Thousands of refugees who have entered Europe experienced threatening conditions, potentially leading to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which has to be detected and treated early to avoid chronic manifestation, especially in children. We aimed to evaluate and test suitable screening tools to detect PTSD in children. Syrian refugee children aged 4–14 years were examined using the PTSD-semi-structured interview, the Kinder-DIPS, and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). The latter was evaluated as a potential screening tool for PTSD using (i) the CBCL-PTSD subscale and (ii) an alternative subscale consisting of a psychometrically guided selection of items with an appropriate correlation to PTSD and a sufficient prevalence (presence in more than 20% of the cases with PTSD). For both tools we calculated sensitivity, specificity, and a receiver operating characteristic Citation: Nehring, I.; Sattel, H.; (ROC) curve. Depending on the sum score of the items, the 20-item CBCL-PTSD subscale as used in Al-Hallak, M.; Sack, M.; Henningsen, P.; Mall, V.; Aberl, S.